IBM Breeds New Business Unit To Feed Watson

IBM is investing more than $1 billion in a new business unit. It's banking on a market for cognitive computing services that actually learn and reason.

A New York City press conference marked the official launch of an IBM unit based on Watson, the computer best known for defeating human Jeopardy champions in 2011. This unit is dedicated to selling Watson's natural language, machine learning-based services to enterprises.

At the event, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty invoked a word that biologists would typically reserve for organic life forms. Watson's latest incarnation is "a new species, if I can call it that," she said. "It is taught; it is not programmed. By design, it learns by experience, and it learns from interaction. And by design, it gets smarter over time and makes better judgments over time."